With Rian Johnson making the press rounds for his latest movie, it’s hardly surprising that interviewers still want to get in a question or two about his Star Wars film. The Last Jedi remains arguably the most polarizing in the Skywalker saga, with vocal fans divided into love and hate camps. And while there are many reasons for that, one is the way it ends, almost as if it’s concluding the saga rather than leading into a trilogy finale. After wrapping up the primary character conflicts, The Last Jedi ending shows kids playing with homemade Star Wars toys, inspired by the Resistance in the same way Kenner Star Wars toys inspired Johnson to make movies.
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As part of a general criticism that the sequel trilogy wasn’t properly mapped out, this degree of closure confused some. Quoted from a new interview with The Atlantic (via Deadline), Johnson shed some light on his thought process.
“In terms of the Star Wars movie I did, I tried to give it a hell of an ending,” he said. “I love endings so much that even doing the middle chapter of the trilogy, I tried to give it an ending. A good ending that recontextualizes everything that came before it and makes it a beautiful object unto itself—that’s what makes a movie a movie. It feels like there’s less and less of that. This whole poisonous idea of creating [intellectual property] has completely seeped into the bedrock of storytelling. Everyone is just thinking, How do we keep milking it? I love an ending where you burn the Viking boat into the sea.”
The filmmakers forced to follow it may disagree, as J.J. Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker struggled to find an additional way to conclude the saga after that. But as middle parts of Star Wars trilogies go, it certainly has more of a conclusive ending than The Empire Strikes Back or Attack of the Clones. For better or worse.
Do you think Johnson did right by the film’s ending? Let us know in comments!
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